The Last Voyage of the Endurance
by spikala
Summary: If droids like R2 are sentient, why not the great cruisers of the Republic Navy? This is the story of the Endurance, her Admiral, and that fine line between duty and survival. Set in Season 2 Episode 20.
1. Meet the Endurance

_Don't own Star Wars - no disrespect meant to the franchise, Mr Lucas & Mr Filoni. Please don't sue._

_A/N: This fic was originally published as a much shorter, abrupt version. The rewrite turned out so differently that it was easier to delete the old story and start afresh._

* * *

_"When that ship came in for repairs recently, I came across some pretty strange code in the main program. It looked awfully like one of your programs. Square with me on this - did you add something into that cruiser's system?"_

_"Not to that one. The code is distributing itself at this point." _

_"Have you lost your mind! The Republic is bound to notice something like that, especially with all of the high profile Sep viruses bouncing round. You'd better pray that the higher-ups and Republic Intelligence don't pick up on this."_

_"You're one of Kuat's best programmers: how hard and how long did you have to look to find it?" _

_"Not the point." _

_"C'mon, you know as well as I that these ships are already aware, they're basically huge droids floating in space. The code just gives them the chance to make some decisions without needing the crew to rubberstamp everything."_

_"__They're not alive, Kelvin. Don't make them into something that they're not."_

=============o0o====================

In the Uziel system in the Outer Rim, _Endurance _was dozing to the sound of her engines, cradled by the stellar breeze that twined around her.

In the blackness that cradled her, she felt the solar flares gently warming her hull, pushing softly against her with silken fingers. Pinpricks of starlight dappled her hull, tantalising promises of the taste of alien suns. She could see the streams of radiation streaming over the planets in the distance. The helical current that Vanqor's sun produced was uniquely relaxing; a gently whirlwind of plasma buffeting her, and with enough of an electrical charge to soothe her systems and circuits. _Pioneer_ had mentioned in a passing transmission that the Uziel system's winds were amongst the best in the sector: _Endurance_ was more than satisfied by her sister ship's assessment.

Her voyage had been without incident – her new upgrades were performing well, and she had been free to enjoy the quirks of the star system. She'd delegated tasks to her subroutines, and instead focused on the joy of soaring through the void. With the war accelerating, it had been a while since she'd had a chance to just relax.

Teyr – she had not relaxed since then. 416th Star Corps had been aboard and she'd had the _Redeemer_ with her. That had been a tough fight. Her environmental systems had been heavily damaged, but it turned out that having low oxygen reserves was fine for the return trip. So many of her softies hadn't returned from that planet – she'd calculated a total fatality rate of 80.3% across the Corps – that the oxygen demand was a fraction of what it had initially been.

This would be her first proper run since being released from space dock. It was satisfying to have all the dings ironed out and scorched circuits replaced, but she was pleased to be out of there. Having technicians poking around her central processors had been odd. Some of the changes they'd made to her programming were very disorientating and it had taken her _hours_ to get used to them. For an entity that functions on a nanosecond scale, an hour was an eternity.

That had been days ago now, and she was more than familiar with all the upgrades and changes. It felt like she'd always had them, they'd always been part of her. _Endurance_ idly extended her concentration to check that all systems were operating at peak efficiency; sub-light engines thrummed, the reactor core was running smoothly, all her fighters were safe on hanger deck, and the staccato tread of boots rang through her decks as her complement of softies and droids scurried around inside. On the bridge, she heard the Admiral ask for a status report. Lightning fast she sent a copy of the relevant information to bridge crew's terminals – _[__All present and correct] _– and listened to them relay it to her Admiral.

It was pleasing to feel the buzz of activity again. Having no crew aboard was another thing that made being docked so tedious. Organics had a way of livening things up that droids just could not replicate. The 416th Sky Corps weren't here though and none of the computers or ships at space dock had been able to tell her why. Instead she'd been given a small complement of troopers that, truth be told, rattled around inside her barracks.

When they'd been aboard during her last mission, the 416th Sky Corps had filled her barracks to capacity and beyond; it had been intriguing to observe them running through drills and practising in her training room. She had found it most diverting to program in new and complex simulations into the firing range computer and watch the troopers solve her scenarios one after the other. Unfortunately the troopers had been a bit too observant, noticing she responded faster, and with better scenarios than the computer at the firing range had previously concocted. She'd needed to hastily cover her tracks with a flurry of subroutines; her mandate was the whole ship, not one firing range.

She'd been still been new then, impetuously jumping around the ship's computers as it pleased her. Testing her limits, finding out how much she could get away with before the crew started noticing her presence. The Admiral had put a stop to that. He was a very smart organic, was her Admiral. He'd noticed the pattern of heightened activity, started wondering in his private records if this ship were different. She'd been so flustered by the attention, that she'd even considered erasing his files. _Redeemer_ had steered her straight though, obliquely warning that erratic performance and missing data files often resulted in a system reboot.

Now she had reached a sort of gentle-being's agreement with her Admiral. He pretended not to notice when she did something unexpected, and she had created an army of subroutines and event handlers to make sure that her presence wasn't missed whenever she split her attention through different areas of the ship. He knew though. He must do. She had seen the transfer orders - nothing happened in this ship that she wasn't aware of on some level - and his bluntly worded rejection of them. They'd gone into space dock together, and they would come out of space dock together. Even the famed _Resolute_ couldn't boast that level of commitment from _her_ admiral.

Space rippled in the distance, characteristic eddies and vortexes in the velvet black heralding the arrival of ships from hyperspace. _Endurance_ reached out, scanning for Republic transponder codes, and verified that there were two Jedi fighters. One of her thread-dogs brought up the relevant data on the fighters and their passengers: _[Delta-7 Interceptor, Aethersprite-class, Republic Code AD9X-WBP6,Gen. Skywalker] [Delta-7 Interceptor, Aethersprite-class, Republic Code AR8E-F1HR, Gen. Windu]_. All of her scan data and conclusions were routed through the bridge consoles as a matter of routine, but her softies sometimes had a mind of their own.

Having satisfied themselves that her analysis was correct, her Admiral and the crew were busy preparing for the arrival of their guests; both Generals were interested to see how her upgrades had performed during this shakedown cruise. Her crew seemed determined to show off her upgrades to the best of their abilities and she'd gotten the maintenance droids to clean from bow to stern. Everything was ready for the Generals. It was just too bad that interceptors tended to be lousy conversationalists.

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The story will be updated weekly on Wednesday. Reviews welcomed.


	2. The Calm

_Star Wars belongs to George Lucas and LucasFilm._

_I hope you enjoy the chapter. A small note of clarification - all speech that the _Endurance_ hears comes through her microphone/speaker system, so it's italicised the same as any other data feeds she recieves. Let me know if this format is annoying or breaks up the flow._

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_"Do you ever get the feeling that this ship is different, Forr?"_

_"Of course she's different. She's ours."_

_"Not that. It's just… sometimes, things go smoother than they ought to."_

_"Let me get this straight, you're complaining that Republic tech is working better than it should? _Ner vod,_ are you sure they didn't spike your nutrient solution on Kamino?"_

_"Laugh it up. I'm serious."_

_"__So am I, Sev. Leave it alone. That's the Admiral's worry."_

====================o0o==========================

The _Endurance _thought that the tour had gone satisfactorily: both Generals had seemed suitably impressed by the her upgrades, which had seemed to mean a great deal to her bridge crew. She'd listened, bemused, as the Primary Weapons Officer had babbled on about General Skywalker's aptitude with ships and machines, and how his stamp of approval carried weight. It struck her as a very organic thing to say: after all, approval was an intangible thing, it wasn't possible for it to have mass. Perhaps the 'stamp' had the mass instead… She tagged a subroutine to investigate the matter further.

The best part of the inspection had turned out to be General Skywalker's astromech. Unusually chatty for a droid - or at least compared to the ones she had on board - R2-D2 turned out to have more than a few interesting 'off-record' tidbits of information. He certainly seemed to find himself in a sticky situation more often than not, be it on the ground or in the air. Apparently the General seldom went anywhere without his R2 unit, which was interesting in itself. She'd noticed that most wets, non-mechanical beings, tended to ignore those who came with circuit relays and processors rather than flesh and blood. Skywalker was proving to be more interesting than the average general, it might be worth keeping tabs on him.

One of unexpected outcomes of the inspection was that not only were both Generals keen to stay for the remainder of the shakedown cruise, but that they had invited a Clone Youth Brigade to join them. The mention of the Youth Brigade had been so enthusiastically seconded by Admiral Killian, that _Endurance_ had gone digging in her databanks to find out what this brigade was, and why her Admiral was so pleased. The answers had proved most enlightening.

She'd never considered the possibility that her troopers were once children. She was aware that softies tended to start out as juveniles, and remodelled themselves over a number of years until they were complete – a fairly inefficient process in itself – but putting the process in the context of her crew was… strange. For all of the hundreds of beings that had crossed her decks, troopers-under-construction, cadets, were something entirely outside her normal operating parameters.

The Youth Brigade's frigate would be docking in approximately six hours. The cadets would be onboard for two standard days and receive a tour of the entire ship. _Endurance_ idly logged the necessary paperwork into the ship's log and assigned the cadets a section of the barracks. On the bridge, she heard Admiral Killian and Commander Ponds sorting out details of the tour. It was so handy having microphones on the bridge. Her crew did often inexplicable things in the heat of battle, and although she complied with all their orders, understanding their overall aim was sometimes difficult, and made it hard to be helpful. Hearing what they were saying and finding out what they thought was invaluable.

Speaking of difficult-to-understand softies… it was shift change for the troopers; CT-1477 should be coming off-duty. He was usually on guard duty near the reactor core. She kept tabs on a few specific crew members who had a habit of livening things up. CT-1477 had come to her notice when he'd converted her observation deck into an impromptu paraan ball court on the sly, accidentally setting off the damage sensors. The censure of his superiors hadn't slowed him down; instead he'd proven most innovative, shifting the court around the ship to avoid detection. His audacity had been most entertaining. It was 64% probability that he would try the ward room on deck three this week.

_Endurance_ slipped away from the bridge and went roaming through the ship. It was marvellous to skim along unscorched circuits and relays. All her systems responded eagerly as she brushed past them, offering seductive glimpses of cool logic and gleaming linear landscapes of light. Later perhaps. She could wait to immerse herself in the heady flow of calculations and code. Right now she wanted to spend time with her softies.

In the mess hall, the second watch was eating their last meal of the day. The snippets of conversation that filtered through the microphones were overlain with the chink of cutlery on plates and the faint clatter of activity in the kitchen. She lingered enough to hear the usual grumbles about the food, the vagaries of this officer or another. She perked up when she heard some of her maintenance technicians talking:

_"Karking waste chutes have backed up again on deck eight. Guess who gets to sort them out next watch duty."_

_"Oh that's rough, Three-Six. The eight-chute always seems to be getting gummed up with all kinds of junk."  
_

She assigned one of her droids to scour out the chute in question. She liked her maintenance techs, they tended to think the same way she did even if sometimes they had a most peculiar way of doing repairs. If anyone decided to query the droid, she could always cite it was a health and safety issue.

The next stop was the war room, where the Generals were debriefing with Master Yoda. All of them looked fairly grim. She upped the transmission quality, smoothed out the sound, and strengthened the signal. Skywalker's R2 unit noticed her changes, toodling a query, but the organics hushed him. She'd always wondered if having a vocabulator would make communicating easier, but she'd come to the conclusion that softies tended to want to figure it out themselves in their own maddeningly slow way. R2's stories backed up her hypothesis. She'd stick with her current routine of putting the data on a console for her crew to find. _Endurance _tarried while the Jedi dithered, idly crosschecking information in their conversation against her databanks, and updating her files as needed.

One of her trackers chirped, wanting her attention: CT-1477 was busy playing paraan ball with another trooper in the shower block of one of unused barracks. 64% probability and he'd still managed to surprise her. That was why he had earned a tracker program. She scanned the ship for other spaces suitable for a game of paraan ball, _[38 suitable activity areas identified]_, and anonymously sent a copy of the list to his helmet's Heads Up Display for him to discover. She was curious to see how he'd react and amused herself by calculating the probability of him using each space. Watching CT-1477 play was no fun; the game was simply a matter of applied force and angles, so she left him and went wandering again.

Her Admiral was in his room watching a holodisk from his family. A smiling blue image of his wife and children hovered in the air above his desk. The children were energetic, jumping around and talking excitedly.

_"Daddy! My tooth is getting really wobbly! I can almost bend it right over with my tongue!"  
_

_"Daddy, daddy! We made cookies with mommy yesterday! Not from a packet, Daddy! I made a circle cookie and a square cookie and a triangle cookie and..."_

She closed down her data feeds from the Admiral's cabin. Normally she had no qualms about keeping tabs on her Admiral, but this was... different somehow. Proper softie stuff. _Endurance_ withdrew, immersing herself again in the icy flow of logic and the chatter of her computer nodes.

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_Reviews are always welcomed - how else am I to know if you enjoying the time spent with the_ Endurance,_ or getting confused and frustrated by paragraphing/spelling/characterisation etc :)_

_The story starts picking up pace next Wednesday with the arrival of the cadets...  
_


	3. The Green Astaire

_George Lucas - you are awesome, not only for bringing Star Wars into the world, but not suing us fans for playing in your universe._

_A/N: Edited to include Sgt Fury's proper name which I came across on some concept art when researching Chapters 4 and 5, and the helpful pointers from Darkwinter999.  
_

_Just as a reminder, all of _Endurance's_ data feeds are shown in italics. Internal feeds are in square brackets [ ], ship-to-ship is shown in { }. Still with me? :)_

* * *

_"Admi..l, …. a…. pl….. to ….."_

_"Excuse me, General; your signal is very weak. Number One - see if you can't increase the signal strength… there we go. We're receiving you loud and clear, General."_

_"Admiral Kilian. I've just received your response, and frankly, I am not sure what to say. This is highly irregular."_

_"I'm aware of that, General. However I feel that assigning me to another ship would be a waste of my time and effort when I've just become comfortable with the Endurance."_

_"That ship was never intended to be a long-term command for you. We need your experience in other areas of the fleet, Admiral. The Jedi Council feels it would be better if a more… junior officer commanded the Endurance." _

_"Master Jedi, I don't expect you to understand, but there is a bond between a ship and her crew. She's not just a ship, she's our home, our community. And that kind of bond doesn't take kindly to change."_

_"Other admirals have voiced no objections."_

_"That may be so, but this is my ship, and I will be staying with her. If you'll excuse me, General, there are things I must take care of before your arrival. Kilian out."_

==============o0o===============

The frigate with the cadets arrived perfectly on schedule, popping out from hyperspace with a shiver. _Endurance's_ scanner leaped to identify it, eagerly informing her: _[Frigate, Consular-class, Republic Code C3G8-47UJ]!_ She soothed it, assuring it that it'd done a good job and it settled, curling up in a ball again until the next alert.

A gentle tingling against her comm relay signalled the frigate's request for a line of communication. She obliged, reciprocating with a gentle brush against the other ship's delicate hull.

_{Green Astaire acknowledges Endurance. Request dock, passenger transfer.} _The smaller ship sounded weary and matter of fact.

_{Endurance acknowledges Green Astaire. Request granted. Green Astaire status? Maintenance required?} _

The frigate replied sluggishly_, {Negative. Reject offer. Status – operational.}_

_Endurance _disagreed. {_Recommend diagnostic. Slow response time increases risk. Maintenance crew will be assigned.}_

_{Appreciate offer Endurance, unable to comply. Scheduled for immediate departure once passengers disembark.}  
_

_Endurance_ was once again reminded that most ships in the fleet didn't get the same luxury of care that the destroyers did. She'd just come out of space dock; she wasn't sure when the _Green Astaire_ had last been looked at. {_Passenger status satisfactory?}_ she asked.

_{Fully functional. Wait one.} _The _Green Astaire _sent her an audio snippet from the pilot cabin. {_"Wow…..It's the Jedi cruiser!"}_

Endurance was mildly flattered by the cadets' obvious awe and their enthusiasm. A thrill ran through her circuits at the thought of their imminent arrival.

_{Acknowledged Green Astaire. Doors open – cleared for docking.}_

On the bridge, her crew had only just confirmed the _Green Astaire_'s identity. Softies were so slow sometimes. She watched the Generals leave to greet the cadets, making their way slowly through her corridors.

Outside, the _Green Astaire_ slowed, trying to match its velocity with hers. One of her subroutines piped up with a steady stream of updates on the docking process; _[Velocity match estimated in 30 seconds, tractor beam engaged]. _She shut it out, ignoring the indignant response of the program as the _Green Astaire_ was slowly drawn into her lower hanger. Then the _Astaire_ was docked; the telescopic bridge making contact with the frigate's exterior hatch.

A compressed data burst transmission came from the _Green Astaire_. {_Passenger transfer complete. Data package for Generals Skywalker and Windu. Delivery status: Urgent!}_

_{Acknowledged.} _

_Endurance _inspected the data package. The outgoing data tags came from General Kenobi's flagship, the _Negotiator_, automatically making the recording a Level Four priority. She routed the data package to the bridge crew. They'd know what to do with it. In the hanger, the _Green Astaire_ was preparing to leave.

_Endurance_ sent one last transmission. {_Fly free.} _

_{Acknowledged Endurance. Sentiment returned.} _

The tingling in _Endurance's_ comm system cut off abruptly as the frigate closed the connection.

A whistled inquiry interrupted her. Her bridge master-program, the most complex of all the programs she had designed, wanted her attention. It reported that her main communication system was experiencing problems with some of the recent upgrades. The program sounded panicky – it wasn't used to having to troubleshoot. _Endurance_ spared a few tenths of a second to placate it before she bent her attention to the comm system.

===============o0o==================

It took forever to sort out the communications system. She'd managed to ensure that the crew could still send and receive transmissions, but the new security scramblers were having difficulty integrating with the rest of the system. For all her hard work, _Endurance_ wasn't one hundred percent sure that outgoing transmissions would be properly scrambled. The system itself had seemed almost… sulky, responding sluggishly to her directions. It seemed to be behaving itself now but _Endurance_ planned to keep an eye on it. After all, it wouldn't do for something to go wrong and not be able to call for assistance.

Wrestling with the errant comm system had been draining. It had taken longer than she had expected and _Endurance _felt a touch sluggish by the time she'd finished. _Am I getting slow?_ She ran a quick diagnostic: _[System response time: 71 mgcf]_. _A fourteen percent lag?_ This was troubling. She obviously needed to go offline to allow her cleaner programs time to do their job.

She debated going into a maintenance cycle - she was well overdue for a clean-up, but her Admiral was talking with the cadets in one of her portside gun emplacements. He had been so upbeat about the cadets' arrival that she wanted to see he was pleased. She tasked the bridge master-program to take over and went to see what the Admiral was up to.

He and a trooper, Sergeant Fury according to her databank, were busy showing the cadets the importance of the gun emplacements to the ship's safety. She liked Sergeant Fury; he had an impressive vulture kill rate, and always seemed to take it as a personal victory whenever he stopped a vulture droid from slamming into her. He had a certain disregard for mechanical life-forms that she wasn't too keen on though.

After a short pep talk, the Admiral finally authorised the cadets to try hitting skeet drones. _"You there! Take the gun!"_

_Endurance_ watched eagerly to see how the troopers-in-training would perform. Fury sent a skeet droid sailing into the velvet-black. She watched the skeet's trajectory with her sensors. The cadet fired! And missed spectacularly! _Endurance_ felt a twinge of disappointment. The next cadet did no better. It seemed that the targeting aptitude in troopers took a while to develop; the cadets simply weren't finished yet.

Her Admiral didn't look too impressed either. _"Training's no match for experience, and it's the one thing none of you have." _

_Endurance_ was temporarily puzzled by the Admiral's distinction – surely training and experience were similar enough that one could substitute for the other. But the Admiral wasn't done with target practice.

"_I know that look…"_

Fury fired off another skeet. The last cadet rushed to the gun and lined up the drone. He fired! The skeet dissolved into a fiery blossom. _Endurance_ perked up.

Three more skeet drones shot away, their paths spiralling around each other as they soared away from the ship. The cadet paused only momentarily before dispatching each of the unfortunate drones. It seemed that this cadet would be handy to have around during a Separatist attack! The Admiral shared her conclusion. His smile was at 72.3% of maximum as the cadets filed out of the room.

She tried to tag the cadet's file with a note. Perhaps when he graduated he could serve aboard her alongside the Admiral, but she couldn't seem to find the cadet's file in the passenger manifest that the _Green Astaire_ had sent her. Her diagnostic warned her - _[System response time: 84 mgcf], _her processing had deteriorated further. The file was probably there, she decided; it must just be that she was just getting sluggish. _Endurance_ transferred the ship's functions to the bridge master-program and put herself into a maintenance cycle.

===============o0o==================

Suddenly, something was wrong.

The clamour of alarms and howl of klaxons jolted _Endurance_ out of her maintenance cycle. She could feel her corridors twisting, strained metal warping. A wave of heat and pressure had erupted in one of her corridors. _Endurance _struggled to think; to cancel maintenance mode.

Her cleaner program grumbled at her, unhappy with her actions._ [Warning - system response time: 87 mgcf__. Recommend resumption of maintenance cycle]_. She was processing 40.3% slower than normal. _Definitely sub-optimal!_

Her bridge-master was almost hysterical. Endurance mobilised her sub-routines; demanding that they send her any status updates, sensor alarms, and information from the long range scanners. Her decks rang with the sound of boots as her crew readied themselves for a Separatist attack.

Something was odd though, she hadn't felt any ripples from ships exiting hyperspace – her over-eager scanner would've brought it to her attention. One by one, her subroutines reported back, carrying the requested information with them. Rapidly she compiled the data, building up a picture of what had happened, and sent the data package to her tactical computer on the bridge. After what seemed to be an age, Tactical finally gave her an answer: it was not a Separatist attack, _[Localised explosion – Gen. Windu's quarters. Structural and fire damage]._

_Endurance _sped along her circuits to the affected region. Cameras in the corridor were undamaged, showing a clear image of black smoke curling through the corridor, warped bunks, and wires torn from the ceiling. Power to her fire suppressant systems had been cut off, and the nearby navigation computer was damaged. Forwarding her findings to the bridge, _Endurance_ searched for life signs in the inferno and found none. She closed the blast doors: hopefully that would keep the flames confined to this section of the ship. Sparks flew from severed cables as she rerouted all systems past the damaged areas, triggering fire response systems, and alerting her repair droids.

She had just finished routing power to emergency systems when her least-favourite subroutine chimed nervously, wanting her attention. The sole purpose of this program was to monitor the status of her crewmembers, informing her as they became damaged or non-functional. During her last encounter with the Separatist fleet, the damn program had kept piping up stridently every minute. She still remembered the almighty clamour it had made when three decks had been blown open to the vacuum of space. Her snarl had frightened the program into timidity; now it volunteered updates in an almost apologetic tone.

The casualty program chimed again, _[Crew status update: 1 unit non-functional. CT-27/5790, clone marine, Open Circle Fleet - assigned to the _Endurance_]._

_Endurance _raced back to the guest quarters. For a horrible moment she was the corridor, straight lines, blistered grey paint, and twisted searing hot metal. In front of the closed blast doors, General Windu was crouched on the deck, cradling one of her troopers in his arms. _"Are you alright? Trooper? Trooper!"_

The trooper didn't respond. He never would. There was nothing more she could do for him. _Endurance _fled back down her circuit relays, away from the corridor, away from him, and plunged headlong into the nav computer. That, at least, she could fix.

* * *

_I hope you enjoyed the latest update of the _Endurance's_ story. All reviews are more than welcome._

_Next Wednesday: Things go wrong in the reactor room...  
_


	4. Reactor Breach

_Star Wars belongs to George Lucas. The story contains transcribed dialogue from the "Death Trap" episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, copyright Lucas Films Ltd (which now belongs to Disney).  
_

_A/N: Edited to fix up the grammatical errors that Darkwinter999 kindly pointed out.  
_

* * *

_War does not come with a guarantee. _

_No soldier gets the promise of safety, survival, or victory. Men, I guarantee you this: every member of this Clone Youth Brigade will have his moment and it is that moment you are no longer a cadet—you are a soldier. _

_You have the best training in the galaxy, but no one can train you for the moment that you look death in the eyes. What you do then—the soldier you become—that is up to you. _

_—Sergeant Crasher, on the bridge of the Green Astaire._

==========o0o============

_Endurance_ was waiting in the morgue when her marine arrived. The medic, Makino, went and stood by the still form on the gurney. A few minutes ago, her trooper had been alive, roaming around her corridors, ready to protect her from the worst the Separatists could do. Now…

_Endurance_ watched gravely as the medic began gently removing the dead man's armour. CT-27/5790's helmet already had a red X scrawled above his visor. The heat and pressure from the blast had killed him instantly—he never had a chance. To one side, med droids started cleaning the marine's armour pieces so that they could be returned to the general stores. Makino shut 5790's eyes and wiped a smear of grime off the dead man's cooling cheek, before moving the body to the incinerator's hatch.

Many decks below, the incinerator—_Endurance's_ molten core—blazed, supplying heat and hot water throughout the ship. To _Endurance_, it was only fitting that after death, her marine became truly part of the ship. She watched him fall, down, down, until she embraced him fully.

==========o0o============

On the bridge, Admiral Kilian was on edge. _Endurance_ knew this because she'd gotten a fair idea of his stress indicators during the battle above Teyr. Right now, her Admiral was pacing up and down in front of the viewports, both hands clasped authoritatively behind his back, and barking at anyone who didn't look busy enough. The other officers on the bridge had picked on the Admiral's mood; subtle tension in their postures and battlefield economy in their movements. The Admiral stopped abruptly and pivoted to face his XO.

"_Number One, I want all engines shut down and two maintenance crews working on that nav computer immediately."_

_Endurance_ felt like protesting; surely the engines were fine as they were? Not to mention, having the engines down meant she would be running on auxiliary power. As long as she didn't have to jump, the damage to the nav computer wouldn't affect normal operations. In any case, she disliked having no propulsion; it felt wrong. But she trusted the Admiral, he'd got her through Teyr in mostly one piece.

The XO, Lieutenant Addi nodded his acknowledgement and signalled the navigation officer to begin powering down her engines. For a few tenths of a second, _Endurance_ felt like circumventing the command. Then the Admiral laid a hand on her bridge console, murmuring under his breath,

"_Atta girl. We'll get this sorted in no time."_

She knew he didn't realise she was there, but _Endurance _couldn't help relaxing at her Admiral's words, her internal processors taking on a less frantic rate of computation. She gave in to the navigation officer's directions and powered down her engines, drifting slowly towards the glowing sphere of Vanqor's third planet.

Her scanner program was enjoying itself, running concentric circles around her in an ever-widening pattern as it searched for signs of trouble. The primary weapons officer was busy checking that all her troopers stood ready at gun posts around the ship. All her weapons were primed, magazines active and free. Her crew was ready to teach any Separatists ships that she was _Endurance,_ pride of the Open Circle Fleet and she was not to be messed with, engines or no.

Just in time, too. The Generals called the Admiral, asking for an update on the ship's systems. Their queries seemed to put her Admiral in a bad mood again; he snapped out his reply and closed the com-link curtly. His comments stung a little, though she appreciated the concern. _Hobbled! A bit pessimistic don't you think? I've had worse! _

==========o0o============

Immersed in the navigation systems, _Endurance_ could feel the Emergency Protocols prowling through the ship, nosing into every system and subroutine. They were dragging non-compliant programs into battle readiness. Rather like the Admiral had done with the bridge officers, only her Admiral didn't threaten to shred his subordinates when they were too slow.

The nav computer was having trouble accessing her central databanks and the relevant sector chart, a scorched circuit or fused relay must be interfering. The computer was in a frenzy, endlessly searching for a gate, a door, some way of passing through to the databank. Not knowing its location was the non-organic analogue of sensory deprivation for the computer. _Endurance_ brushed up against it gently and lit up an alternate route for the computer to follow. It rushed past her, following the new route, humming happily as it spooled up. Now that the nav computer was working, the Admiral was bound to want propulsion next.

Eagerly anticipating having her engines online again, _Endurance_ swept over to the reactor core, wanting to get it ready for her Admiral. Her reactor was idling. With no engines running, there had been no need to having it running at maximum capacity. She busied herself firing up the reactors to full capacity, red lights winking into existence around the sides of the massive rod containment vessels.

The Emergency Protocols rumbled a warning at her, wary of her initiative. They were supremely focused, but just didn't understand that sometimes a better outcome was achieved by ignoring some regulations. Powering up the reactor rods was always a bit chancy if anything were to go wrong with the safety systems or interrupt the start-up process. However, with no attack ships emerging from hyperspace and navigation back online, the risks were minimal. She paused, waiting until the Protocols moved on before resuming her work.

One of her trackers perked up, recognising her renewed presence amidst the reactor core rods and circuitry. _Endurance_ looked it over as it nudged her playfully, checking its coding. Ah, this was CT-1477's tracker. Her resourceful paraan-ball enthusiast was in charge of supervising the reactor room today.

She had just gotten all four reactor rods sparking when an Emergency Protocol hissed nearby, pushing red-flagged data to the upper levels of her concentration._ Endurance_ resigned herself to its displeasure when she realised it wasn't her that had riled the program up; a trooper had found a cadet somewhere he wasn't supposed to be, in blatant violation of personnel rules.

"_This is CT-1477, I need an escort for a cadet back to his group…"_

1477, ah. _Endurance _broke one of her personal rules and squeezed herself into 1477's HUD system. Now she could see the small earnest face below her, hear her trooper talking to the cadet.

"_Is that a DC15-A?"_

"_What? Oh yeah. Here, keep the safety on_." A rifle came into frame briefly as 1477 handed his weapon to the cadet before turning away to continue his com-link conversation.

"_Copy that, CT-1477. We're pretty overloaded with emergency status. We'll get someone there to…" _The transmission broke off as 1477's HUD lurched to one side abruptly.

There was a brief image of the cadet and a rifle coming up towards her. Then the camera went spinning off in a dizzying spiral before landing face up. No life signs were coming from the helmet. _Endurance_ fled back to her main systems, disorientated by the rapid shift.

"_CT-1477. Report in. CT-1477, why have you broken off transmission?"_

She was trying to see if 1477 was still functional when a flood of alarms inundated her. Consoles fell silent in the reactor room, circuits keened, and wires fused in a bevvy of sparks. _No!_ She needed those safety buffers during power up! _Endurance _reached out to shut down the reactor. Electricity from the reactor rods arced across to other consoles. It surged through her circuits relays to her main processor, shocking her briefly. Dazed and reeling, _Endurance_ tried to reach the main controller of the reactor.

Too late! One of her reactor rods exploded, triggering a chain reaction that ripped through her decks. Her main stabilisers disintegrated, shredded by the blast. Metal shrapnel tore through her corridors. Fires sprang up throughout her stern. Bulkheads collapsed. Whole sections were wrenched off by the pressure wave and were strewn, burning, in her wake. A pinched circuit threw open all her audio feeds, a swell of voices overwhelming her momentarily.

"_Fire on deck four! I need fire crew here on the double!"_

"_Status report, trooper!... Trooper? Respond!"_

"_Medic! I need a medic in here! … Hang in there, Void, don't you dare die on me!"_

Hull integrity alarms started up, adding to the clamour of data competing for her attention. [_Warning: Hull breach and loss of atmosphere decks nine through fifteen.]_

Stressed durasteel had lost integrity and was spilling the contents of her corridors into the bleakness of space. Her casualty subroutine tried to cut in, beginning its all too familiar patter, _[Crew status update:….] Endurance _directed all of her frustration into a compressed burst of static and flung it at the subroutine.

She resolutely shut off all audio feed, choking off the cries of her softies. A distant part of her noted that her Admiral had been close to one of the hull breaches, but for now, she had to focus. There would be enough time later to check the life signs scanner for survivors, assuming she was still in one piece.

Her power supplies were flickering dangerously. What should've been a wonderful, effortless flow of power from her auxiliary generators was instead stilted and halting. The power came in fits and spurts, through crushed conduits, constricted by destroyed circuits and wiring.

The Emergency Protocols rapidly began triaging her systems for her. For all of their annoyances, they were helpful in situations like this. _[Priority Alpha: Rapid chain decompression along stern],_ they reported. Another deck blew open, closer to the portside engines. If she didn't move fast, all her decks in that section, a good quarter of her corridors, would be ripped open.

_Endurance_ blew past scorched metal and wiring, drawing level with and then overtaking the decompressions, slamming shut blast doors in her wake. She paused, waiting for the next compartment to rupture but nothing happened. The Emergency Protocols nudged her gently, silently congratulating her. She turned to acknowledge them but as she reached out, they faded to nothingness. Somewhere in the ship, their datacard had been destroyed.

Her crew needed her, but so did her systems and processors. Unguarded, her memory processors would fall prey to a myriad of problems; electrical surges would burn them out, fires would bake them, and leaks of corrosive coolant and hydraulic fluids would eat away at them. Her systems were lying in ruins, increasing numbers of subroutines were babbling nonsensical lines of code as they faded and winked out of existence. Her intricate city of light was no more. She could save her crew, or she could save her processors. Not both.

_Endurance_ threw open all her senses, spreading herself paper-thin through the entire ship. She was everywhere, was everything from the smallest rivet to the corridors that honeycombed her hull. She could see each and every unfolding drama.

On deck seven, a trio of crew members was desperately trying to open the blast doors that had cut them off from their injured comrade. On deck four, an inferno was converging on her main processing unit. At her core, the containment fields around the incinerator had collapsed and the white-hot furnace was eating its way through the lower decks. The launch mechanisms for emergency pods in sector A8 had no power, the pods clinging lifelessly to her hull. The hydraulic lines to her hanger doors had been severed, sealing her fighters in their bays. A fire raged in the lower levels of her reactor core, sending toxic fumes curling over the catwalk where CT-1477 was. Everywhere she looked she saw flames, dying programs, shattered droids, and members of her crew lying motionless.

Seconds crawled past as _Endurance _tried to work out what to do. With no engines and no stabilisers, she would be dragged in by Vanqor's gravity well and mashed against the planet's unforgiving surface. She might be able to stop it. If she abandoned all efforts to save her crew, if she was willing to sacrifice her softies, leave her programs to their fate, she might limp home still.

Her casualty program chimed in, _[Crew status update: 1 unit non-functional, CT-1477, clone marine, Open Circle Fleet - assigned to _Endurance_.]_

_Endurance_ faltered for a moment. She'd lost another one — CT-1477 this time. She pulled back, away from her poor damaged interior. She accessed the casualty subroutine, interrupting its unceasing updates, _[Query – Admiral. Status?]_

It replied crisply, _[Killian. S. Admiral. Republic Navy Personnel, ID…] _

She cut the program off curtly_. [Acknowledged! Request immediate status report!]_

There was a long pause as the program matched up its historical data against the crew logs. _[Status – Functional]._

Her Admiral was somewhere in the mess of twisted metal. Not drifting through the empty blackness. Still functional. Suddenly it was clear. She knew what she had to do now. _Endurance_ plunged into her systems: it was time to look after her softies.

* * *

_A/N: I got so sad rewatching this episode trying to pull lines out of it. The music that is going on when Boba shoots 1477 and smashes up the Endurance's controls just tugs at my heartstrings each time I hear it. Only one more chapter to go...  
_

___Thanks for reading! Reviews, comments and feedback are welcome and most appreciated :D  
_

___Next week: The final plunge towards Vanqor.  
_


	5. The Plunge

_Full credit goes to the teams headed by Mr Lucas and Mr Filoni for creating the wonderful world of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. As before, this chapter contains dialogue transcribed from "Death Trap"._

___Especial thanks to laloga for all her encouragement and feedback over the course of the story._

* * *

_Adversity is a friendship's truest test._

====================o0o====================

In the reactor room, the fire raged. Tongues of flame licked at the durasteel walls defying all attempts, mechanical and organic, to stifle them. _Endurance_ watched as one of her damage teams tried to stem the blaze; retardant foam hissing as it tried to extinguish the inferno. Thick acrid smoke swirled about the cavernous room, billowing around the reactor pillars and wafting over the catwalks.

Through the haze, she could just make out the white of the team's armour as they moved around. The fire was still growing despite their best efforts. The exposed reactor rods had been feeding the flames and now the blaze was self-sustaining: not even a complete atmospheric vent of the ship would stop it now. Parts of the ceiling were already starting to collapse under the intense heat. Above the roar of the fire, _Endurance_ could hear the fire fighters yelling at each other:

"_Aim for the base of Core Two! We've got to protect the memory core!"_

"_It's too late for that! Breach in Core Three! Pull back! Pull back!"_

"_Look, sir! It's the General!"_

_Endurance_ couldn't see the General, his dark brown robes blended into the haze perfectly. She could hear him though.

"_Sergeant, status report!"_

_Endurance_ caught a flash of white amidst the murk as the trooper snapped out a salute. _"It's too late, General Windu, two of the reactors have been breached. We can't stop the fire. Permission to evacuate sir."_

"_Permission granted, trooper. Head for the pods."_

The troopers dropped their gear and headed out. Below the catwalk, the fire increased its tempo as the last of the fire-retardant was vaporised. The blaze surged along the network of corridors at the base of the reactor room, hungrily following the richer streams of oxygen wafting from undamaged areas.

In a small room abutting the corridors, a memory processor was nestled against the dull grey walls. One of five nondescript boxes of conduits and wiring,_ Endurance's_ memory processors contained her truest self; lines of coding, data files and ship's logs. Everything that she was, neatly packed into her five memory cores that were spread throughout the ship.

Flames rushed past the room, shorting the door's control panel. The thick durasteel door slid open then in a blast of superheated air and flame, her memory core was gone.

...

...

_Endurance_ heard a voice. _"Get your men out of here! There's nothing more you can do."_

Who was that? She couldn't remember, it didn't sound like one of her clones. _Endurance_ knew she ought to remember - she still had four memory cores left after all, but the voice wasn't bringing up a corresponding data file anymore. She tried to access her personnel files, but the database had been vaporised along with her memory processor. She could still remember her Admiral; he was burned into her central memory core, the one that contained her program. Everyone else...

The voice continued, _"R2 - prep the fighters, be ready to take off."_

Fighters, she remembered them. Her pilots needed their ships. _Endurance_ started towards the main hanger, leaping across missing conduits and torn wiring. Half-way there, she remembered her bridge master-program. Perhaps it could help her.

_[Status of primary systems? Are crew safe?]_ she asked it.

_[Error: Unrecognised command. Please re-enter]_ it replied mechanically.

_Endurance_ paused. The program didn't sound right. Emergencies normally made it anxious; damage on this scale should've sent it into a panic. She focused, seeing beyond the program's interface into its coding. At a glance, she could see the program wasn't doing well. Chunks were missing, junk code building up inside it. The master-program had been reduced to its basic components; an automaton incapable of independent thought, with everything that made it unique stripped away.

_[Query – Primary systems, summary. Query – Personnel,_ _percentage still to evacuate]_ she asked it, carefully picking her phrasing.

_[Navigation - offline. Tactical – offline. Personnel –… Error: Unable to access personnel files]_ it reported matter-of-factly.

_Endurance_ experienced a surge of frustration. She should've known that the program wouldn't be able to work that out. Her missing memory was affecting her more than she had anticipated.

She tried a different tack. _[Query – Emergency pods, number remaining]_

_[Fifteen pods still attached. Bay 2D-Y reports no power to pod launch mechanisms]_

No power? That she might be able to fix. _Endurance_ changed direction, heading instead for bay 2D-Y. She quickly found the problem: a power coupling had been corroded by a coolant leak, debris clogging the conduit so only a trickle of power made it through to the pods.

As she reached the pod bay, she noticed the incinerator's white-hot contents were steadily chewing their way through the decks. Only one deck below the mass of molten metal was another of her memory processors, this one containing the ship's logs—a record of everything that had happened since leaving space dock.

Meanwhile, a small crowd of clones had gathered in the pod bay, technicians frantically trying to reroute power to the pods as air whistled through a crack in the hull. The bay was steadily losing atmosphere and over half of the softies standing there lacked any protection against a vacuum. In the depths of space they would slowly suffocate and freeze, blood boiling in their veins, conscious the whole time unless their lungs happened to rupture from the pressure difference.

Yet another decision; save them or transfer her ship's logs. _Endurance_ had made her choice earlier. She made a note in her main memory core on the bridge, the one farthest away from the damage: _[Priority Alpha: Preservation of ship's company__. Evacuation in progress__. Priority Beta: Open main hanger doors.] _Hopefully she would remember it.

_Endurance_ stretched out, grasping her flickering power supplies firmly, and shoved a surge down the corroded lines. The systems in the pod bay winked into life and her crew scrambled into the pods. As the pods launched, rocketing away from her hull, molten metal from the incinerator dripped through the durasteel deck and enveloped her memory processor.

...

...

_Endurance_ blanked out for a moment.

When she came back to awareness, she found herself in an empty pod bay. Bay 2D-Y. What was she doing here? She couldn't remember. Why couldn't she remember? She searched for the ship's logs but found nothing but molten slag. Her incinerator had somehow escaped containment and was burning its way through the ship. Her main systems were still hanging on but barely. What had happened?

_Endurance_ tried to focus. It was so hard though. Where were her Emergency Protocols? There were just a handful of subroutines roaming the broken remains of her systems. The web of light was now a crumpled, darkened wreck. She had known a moment ago what the problem was, but it was gone, melted away with the ship's logs.

A scrap of data arrived as she tried to work out what had happened. _[Priority Alpha: Preservation of ship's company__. Evacuation in progress__. Priority Beta: Open main hanger doors]_

Evacuation? That made sense given the damage to her hull, any organics trapped aboard wouldn't stay functional for long. They needed to get out.

The hangar doors, yes… that was it. That was what she'd been doing. What was wrong with the doors again? She tried opening them but nothing happened. Her fighters were trapped in their bays. The smaller ships were uneasy; they knew something was wrong but not what. They were used to dealing with enemy ships, gleefully pursuing them through the blackness. Sitting still while the hanger burned around them had stirred them up.

An unexpected toodle caught her attention. An R2 unit had hooked itself up to a terminal in the main hanger. The droid was asking if she needed help, it sounded familiar… was it one of hers? She couldn't remember. The unit sent her a data snippet, _[R2-D2, assigned to General Skywalker, aboard for inspection with Gen Windu and Gen Skywalker]. Endurance_ wavered on the edge of trust: what if it were a Separatist ploy? The R2 responded by sending her a Republic code but she didn't have a databank to verify it against.

_Endurance _shifted to her hanger security cams. She could see the astromech now, a small blue and white droid sitting in front of the dull grey bulkhead that contained one of her terminals. A small Republic cog decorated its front; it seemed the small droid was exactly what it claimed to be. A couple of organics wearing ship's uniforms paced impatiently nearby.

"_Come on, hurry up, stubbie!"_

"_I could hot-wire it, sir." _

"_Do it!"_

One of the men started removing access panels. _Endurance_ ignored him. Why couldn't she open the hangar doors? Electrics were fine, servo motors were functioning, no structural damage to the doors themselves….aha! One of the hydraulic lines was severed. The R2 beeped at her, offering to take over. _Endurance_ wavered.

A fresh explosion rocked her starboard decks, shredding another of her memory banks. Tactical and Navigation were gone. It was getting harder and harder to think, to act: she only had two memory cores left. She sent a copy of the hangar schematics and hydraulic layout to R2-D2. The droid whistled; it had relayed the information to the crew – they would take over. Now it wanted to be with its General on the bridge.

====================o0o====================

On the bridge, her crew were countermanding her actions, confusing her already harassed subroutines. _Endurance_ fled to the bridge, the astromech trailing in her wake. Normally she did as the bridge crew told her but right now, their commands would result in more fatalities. She needed her subroutines to do as she said, even if that meant revealing herself to the crew.

She hesitated, unsure. She was supposed to stay secret. Someone, no - not someone, another ship had told her that. Who? But she had a Priority Alpha command to keep the crew safe, surely that overrode the order for secrecy? Her bridge crew didn't have the whole picture, all auxiliary power needed to be used to save her softies, not her. She locked out the consoles, overriding all security clearances and tying all the ship's functions together into one complex knot that only she could control.

Dimly she heard her softies cursing, the Admiral demanding status updates as the crew fumbled with unresponsive controls. She accessed the main screen on the bridge, reaching out to her Admiral—the only person she could remember—the only way she knew how.

_[Admiral, all functions tied to ship's primary computer. Recommend immediate evacuation of all bridge personnel]_

She watched the Admiral's response warily; his mouth moving as he silently read her message. Other personnel on the bridge had paused what they were doing, silently watching her Admiral and the message scrolling across all the console screens. The lull contrasted strangely with the frantic rush the _Endurance_ could see in her hangers and escape pod bays.

The Admiral turned to one side. _"Ponds. Get them out of here."_

_"Yes, sir."_ A clone started shepherding her crew out. She knew she ought to know his name and number but nothing came to mind. The Admiral stayed steadfastly where he was. _Endurance _tried again.

_[Admiral. Recommend immediate evacuation, survival probability less than 23%]_

He didn't reply for the longest time. Then Kilian crossed to the main view port, _"And what was the probability for Teyr?" _he asked softly.

_Teyr? Endurance_ tried to access the file but it was gone, roasted along with her main databank. Reluctantly she confessed, _[Data currently unavailable.]_

"_4.5%, old girl. We only had a 4.5% chance of making it out of that hell hole. I left you once. I'll not do it again."_

With R2-D2's help, an organic wearing the uniform of a navigation officer had managed to bypass her lockout and was trying to give her the last dregs of auxiliary power. Sparks flew from the damaged console, erasing her messages as the Generals arrived.

"_The main reactor's beyond hope; you have to abandon ship." _

Kilian didn't so much as look at the younger man. _"No, __**you**__ must abandon ship. I'm staying."_

_Endurance_ disagreed. Her crew didn't need to be here, they needed to be in the escape pods. That included her Admiral. The Generals seemed to agree with her.

"_Admiral, you must abandon ship."_

"_Not a chance!"_

"_But, sir, with respect – that's an order!"_

"_It may be your command, General, but it's my ship."_

She could see the two Generals flanking her Admiral, trying to get him to leave. His expression looked, familiar? The word 'stubborn' came to her.

"_We don't have time for that kind of sentiment!"_

"_It's not sentiment: an admiral must go down with his ship. I don't expect you to understand it, Jedi."_

The Generals left along with R2 who whistled a quick farewell before he followed his General to the main hanger.

The planet was getting closer. The bridge master-program calmly reported two escape pods remained. The window for evacuation was closing rapidly. _Endurance_ tried to reason with her Admiral, sometimes softies were known to respond to logic.

_[Two escape pods standing by, Bay 11-L. Advise you evacuate, Admiral.]_

He eyed her central console, making the same expression she could remember seeing him turn on recalcitrant officers. _"Tell them not to wait. My place is here."_

====================o0o====================

Damage reports flooded in from all over, her thoughts slowing to a crawl. _Too much damage,_ she thought numbly. None of her engines would fire. Dimly she felt the nearby planet pulling at her, struggled to concentrate. Her fighters were away, the sleek shapes of the Generals' Delta-7 interceptors streaking out of the hanger doors.

_Endurance _cried out across the stars. Only silence answered her. It was just her: her and the Admiral who refused to leave her bridge as they plunged towards the planet.

All escape pods were gone. Life support flickered, and then died. Against all odds her comm systems was still working. A voice crackled through the tense atmosphere on the bridge,

"_Admiral, what's your status?"_

Her Admiral replied calmly, _"We're caught in Vanqor's gravitational pull. We're going to try and set her down on the surface."_

"_Alright. Once you're down we'll get the rescue teams to your location."_

Then they were in the upper atmosphere, the roar of static overwhelming and frying the comm system. On the bridge, her Admiral stood erect and undaunted, surveying the broken consoles, hands clasped behind his back as Vanqor drew ever closer, looming in the fire-streaked view screen in front of her.

_Endurance_ struggled to keep the ship level, firing her stabilisers in an attempt to create a gentle angle of impact. Her hull blazed red-hot as the atmosphere rubbed her raw, stripping off more pieces of her keel. Alarms shrieked at her, red lights flashing on the few undamaged consoles. Through it all, her Admiral stood unflinching as the ship dissolved around him: trusting her to get him safely to the surface.

More compartments were ripped away, taking another memory core with them.

...

...

Blackness tugged seductively at her. _Endurance_ felt herself drifting, lifting free from her web of light, her grip on her systems slackening. An alert broke through, interrupting the peaceful darkness that was enveloping her.

_[Warning: Forward shields at 8%]_

Dimly, _Endurance_ remembered she needed to keep the bridge intact. There was something, no – someone she needed to protect. There was only a trickle of power left in her systems. Desperately she shoved it at the forward shields. The stabilisers flickered and died. She felt her hull starting to tilt, rolling into an uncontrolled pitched dive.

Then she was through the upper atmosphere, hull creaking as the wind cooled the friction-heated plates. The planet's surface was now ten thousand feet below her, six thousand, and then two thousand feet as she hurtled towards the unforgiving terrain.

_Endurance_ fought the blackness, tried to transfer power to inertial dampers so that the impact wouldn't snap the bridge in two but there was nothing left. Just the trickle of power that was sustaining her central memory bank, her last scrap of self.

The planet was only five hundred feet below her.

Two hundred feet.

One hundred.

_Endurance_ gave herself to the dampers, dissolving into darkness.

====================o0o====================

They had hit hard. That was Admiral Kilian's first thought when he came to.

Commander Ponds was standing over him, looking gravely concerned. "Admiral, are you alright?"

With the clone's help, Kilian got to his feet, wincing as his head spun sickeningly. "Still in one piece, Commander, which is more than I can say for my poor ship."

He looked around the mess that used to be his bridge. The viewport was shattered; beams of durasteel from broken bulkheads lancing through the space, but it was in better shape that he had expected. The men that had volunteered to stay behind with him had also fared better than he had hoped. Everyone was still alive. Lieutenant Addi was busy examining the remains of the comm centre. A couple of troopers were sitting down, propped against consoles.

Ponds followed his gaze. "Link and Tone have busted legs but everyone made it, sir."

"Very good. Send a couple of the men to find us a path out of here. It would rather rude for us to make our rescuers come to us," Kilian said.

The uninjured troopers didn't respond to his mild humour. Instead, they trotted off obediently. Kilian crossed over to the main console, carefully brushing aside shards of transparisteel from the busted viewport. The screen was dead. "Come on old girl, talk to me," he murmured. The panel remained as lifeless as before.

"Admiral."

He looked up to see Ponds watching him and tried to fight a sudden wave of embarrassment. He refused to feel ashamed of his attachment to the _Enduranc__e_, an attachment that had turned out to be entirely justified. Ponds looked a little awkward, his normally deadpan look was gone. "What is it, Commander?"

"It's the _Endurance_'s central memory core. It's completely wiped, must've happened when the ship routed power to the inertial dampers. She's gone, sir."

A knot was forming in his chest. Kilian turned away from Ponds. "Thank you, Commander. That'll be all."

In the corner of his eye, Kilian saw the other man hesitate before going to talk to the injured marines. In front of him, the dead control panel lay quiescent, no lights flickering, no reassuring scrolling of status updates and messages. He stripped off a glove and started slowly wiping away the layer of dust and grime that coated the empty screen.

A quiet clunk caught his attention and Admiral Kilian spun around. A crackling blue field erupted from the centre of the bridge and he knew no more.

* * *

_For those interested, the soundtrack for this chapter is "Serenata Immortale" by Immediate Music. You can find it on Youtube: youtube dot com/watch?v=1HtCquBppTc _

_As always, reviews are more than welcomed. __After all, I'm not psychic so __I love finding out what you think of my stories, what parts you liked and didn't like. _

_Big thanks to all who have been following the _Endurance's _story, I really hope you enjoyed it. If you're keen to stay abreast of future stories, you should totally subscribe to me ;) _


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